


Völuspâ

by Chronolith



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Norse Religion & Lore, Animal Sacrifice, Blood and Violence, Multi, Non-Sexual Slavery, Playlist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 07:32:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17018418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chronolith/pseuds/Chronolith
Summary: The runes clatter over the rough scored wood of her table. Little pieces of bone and ivory lovingly carved and carefully kept gleam at her in the flickering fire light. Allura taps one and then another thoughtfully.“Volva?” Lotor asks quietly, face serious and tone respectful, but there’s a teasing gleam in his pale eyes. “What do the gods say?”At the edges of time and before the cycle begins anew with Ragnarök, Lotor brings his volva a gift.





	Völuspâ

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for a zine that never quite got off the ground. I may or may not come back and expand it. This is also 10000% an id fic for my pagan ass.
> 
> And since this is an id fic, it of course has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/12138401456/playlist/6o5pDcFEyjZsMo44ftlGqq?si=n2bGvc5KTvS6YF6rMLYAWg)

The runes clatter over the rough scored wood of her table. Little pieces of bone and ivory lovingly carved and carefully kept gleam at her in the flickering fire light. Allura taps one and then another thoughtfully.

“Volva?” Lotor asks quietly, face serious and tone respectful, but there’s a teasing gleam in his pale eyes. “What do the gods say?”

( _they’d found each other as children—her with the blood of her captors dripping from her fingers, him with the golden rings of his station like chains across his soul_

 _she’d looked inside his soul and_ laughed __

_he’d sat outside in the howling snow until his father had relented_

_‘the gods have decreed this,’ she’d whispered into his hair where they curled together before the fire like wolf pups in the den_

_‘i’ll flay any man who touches you,’ he’d sworn_

_and so he has_ )

“Don’t mock the gods,” she chides. “They are fickle and as likely to remove their favor as grant it.”

Lotor grins at her—eyes crinkling at the corners, head cocked so he can peer up at her, pale hair falling about his face. “Isn’t that why I have you?” He asks with every appearance of innocence. “To charm the gods back to my side after I have given them offense?”

Allura makes a face at him. “There is only so much that I can do with one such as you,” she tells him seriously. “You shouldn’t give me even more work.”

Lotor makes a face back at her. “I’m your jarl, witch.”

She flicks her fingers at him. “And I’m your witch, jarl, not your pharmakos.”

He catches her hand in his and rubs a thumb along her knuckles. “I would never sacrifice you. Never you.”

It’s an old refrain between them. A piece of easy banter repeated so many times it’s become a touchstone all its own—a call and answer worn into the shape of love. Acxa coughs, unsubtle, and arches a brow at them both in judgmental boredom.

As well she should, they attended her not for her entertainment but for fortune. 

Allura tugs her hand free and traces the runes before her. “Ansuz—signals, signs, a time to pay attention,” Allura’s voice falls into the low, slow tempo of the drums at eventide, the beat of the oars across the water, and the warriors all gather closer to hear her. “Ehwaz—movement, horse and rider, time of transitions. Teiwaz—warrior, a time to fight, dedication and courage. Raido—a journey, a clearing of obstacles. And laguz—the unknown and the unknowable.”

She glances up at the assembled warband as they crowd around Lotor. Ezor hangs off Zethrid with breathless anticipation, her eyes wide. Zethrid tries to look stoic and unaffected, but Allura can see the way her arms flex with restless energy. Acxa tilts her head to the side, a subtle smile curling at the corners of her mouth. Lotor’s grin when she looks at him is wide and sharp and delighted. “You sail to the west.”

Lotor reaches across the table and presses his lips to hers, chaste and hard, as the hall erupts in cheering and shouted preparation. 

“Bring me something shiny,” she whispers against his lips.

Lotor curls a tendril of her hair around his finger. “I’ll fill your hands with gems until they fall from your fingers like water. I’ll bring you the brightest jewel the west has.”

She gathers her runes back into their little bag. The rune hagalaz—the rune for chaos and violent, radical change—tumbles from the bag and she swears she can hear each clack of the rune hitting the table like high and ringing chime. Something squeezes her heart, just once, “Bring me back whatever you like,” she tells him, suddenly breathless. “As long as you come back.”

“Always,” he swears and touches the tips of his fingers to her cheek. “To you, always.”

* * *

She stands on the high cliffs above the city to watch them sail out. She watches him work the lines with a deft hand, hair gleaming like fresh snow in the dawn light. He never turns back to look at her and she does not turn away until the ships are mere flecks on the sea. Allura runs the rune algiz, for protection, through her fingers over and over. 

* * *

She’s on the cliffs—white dress flecked with the viscera of the sacrifice, dagger still dripping with the goat’s blood—when the scout’s horn sends up the cry of their return. Allura’s apprentice rushes to bring her fresh clothes, a basin to wash her hands, but Allura waves her off.

She takes goat’s head, blood still running in rivulets down her arms, and raises it above her head so its curled horns catch the last light of sunset. “Hail, our returning warriors,” she shouts—her voice ringing off the rocky cliffs and across the frothing waters. “ _Hail!_ ”

The cry catches and swells like the song of sea birds as their folk spill from their homes and fields to greet the returning ships, sailing low in the waves, fat with tribute. Lotor, when he looks up at her from the prow of his ship, grins with the blood of their enemies matted in his silver hair.

* * *

“Hail, volva,” the warriors call as the doors swing open to the greet hall. Allura’s apprentice plucks at her sleeve, distressed at her refusal to change. But Lotor’s no stranger to blood, and she knows he will only find a certain savage delight in her blood-spattered visage. His warriors bow low before her, touching their foreheads with their fists, as she walks past.

“You’ve returned,” she says as she walks up to the heavy chair that he carelessly uses as a throne. “You took so long I made sacrifices to Frigg and Freya to remind you of your home.”

“I’m your jarl, witch,” Lotor replies, lazy and smug as a great hunting cat.

“And I’m your witch, jarl,” Allura answers. She casts an eye over the riches piled high and tumbling in the center of the room. Ezor dips her fingers into a coffer and comes up with a necklace dripping from her hand, heavy with gold and glittering gems. “I see you brought me something shiny.”

Lotor laughs so hard he nearly curls into himself. He crooks two fingers at Zethrid. “Show her.”

Zethrid half drags, half hauls a young man forward as if he were nothing more than a sack of potatoes. Allura almost takes him for a boy, so slight is he next to Zethrid’s massive form, but he moves with a lithe grace and his eyes are full of fire. He is also gagged and fit with a thick collar around his neck affixed with a short leash that Zethrid offers to Allura. She quirks an eyebrow at Lotor.

“The jewel of Seville,” Lotor tells her. “Or so we are assured.” 

She frowns at the leash and gives it a gentle tug. The young man stumbles towards her, eyes alight with an emotion she cannot guess at. Allura reaches up to undo his gag. “Are we Saxons,” she asks. “To be afraid of the free speech of even the least of us?”

Lotor sighs as both Zethrid and Ezor shout for her to stop.

The captive spits at her the second the gag leaves his mouth and she arches a brow at him. There’s veritable flood of words from him in a light and lilting language that is lovely to listen to, but from the way his face twists with fury she doubts any of those words are poetry. Lotor laughs so hard he nearly tumbles from his throne.

“Never mind,” she says to Zethrid. “Gag him.”

* * *

“How fares your new thrall,” Lotor asks with a sly little smile as if he didn’t know precisely how much trouble the boy manages to produce with nothing more than a pair of idle hands and the simplest of tools. Allura gives him a vile look and he laughs.

She sighs. “Narti likes him. I may keep him for that alone.”

Lotor twists in his throne and raises his eyebrows dramatically at her. 

Narti—their resident knife-in-the-dark, whisper-on-a-winter-wind—shares her words and opinions as liberally as a miser shares coin in winter. Her likes and dislikes are mercurial and many a warrior had lost coin betting as to which way her temper would blow. For her to openly declare her fondness for someone outside her tightly held circle of confidantes—and thrall at that—is unprecedent. 

Allura pours herself a goblet of mead and sloshes the liquid a bit just to watch the drops cling to the crystal. “She thinks he’s clever.”

Lotor makes an interested noise. “And how did she discover this?”

“Apparently,” Allura says after taking a deep sip of her mead, “she found he can sign, and likes secrets.”

* * *

Her thrall steps in front of her, making her stop in her tracks. He matches her scowl for heavy scowl before signing, slow and deliberate as if she is a stupid child. _Lance_.

Allura watches his hands before tilting her head at him, as slow and deliberate as his signing. “And why should I give you a weapon, churl?”

He sneers at her, the expression surprisingly beautiful on his mobile face. _Don’t play dumb_ , he signs, his hands like a flight of frightened doves, _it ill suits you._

The audacity of him startles a laugh from her and he blinks at the sound. “Alright then,” she sighs after the laughter dies from her throat. “Lance it is.”

The look he gives her is darkly contemplative. _I use a bow_ , he signs, _shouldn’t I have a weapon, noble mistress?_

Allura slides into his space, breathes in his scent and listens to the sudden hammering of his nervous heart, and sighs against his mouth, “what makes you think I cannot defend myself, churl?”

( _once she’d stood on a scarred and pocked deck of a raiding ship and sucked the blood of her captors from beneath her nails_

 _she needs no brave knight to defend her—she has her claws and her teeth and Lotor and that has always been enough_ )

Lance cocks his head to the side and his hands flutter at his side for a moment before they settle on the swell of her hips. “Who says,” he replies, his accent making the words a nearly incoherent slip-slide of syllables and forgotten consonances. His smile is a sharp-edged thing, like broken glass, when she jerks in surprise at hearing their language on his lips. “That I would be defending you?”

“Bold,” she comments and fits her fingers between his where they flex, ever so slightly, on her hips as if he wants dig in claws. 

“Fortune favors the bold,” he tells her seriously.

“Am I fortune, then?” She asks curiously. Allura’s not sure what to do with this knife-slice lean man with his laughing eyes and insolent tongue.

He tips his face to her, lips hovering over hers like a question. “Close enough to be confusing,” he whispers like it’s a secret. Allura kisses him then, hard and mean, and decides to keep him.

* * *

“So?” Lotor asks, his eyes jewel-bright with curiosity and amusement. He’s an indolent slouch of a man across his heavy wooden throne with its great carvings and heavy gouges from careless challenges. 

“I’m keeping him,” she says and shoves him hard enough to knock him off his throne when he laughs at her.

* * *

_He’ll want his freedom. One day not too far off he’ll come asking for it_ , Narti signs, her fingers quick and nimble despite the empty bottle of mead sitting between them. _What will you say to him?_

“He’ll have to earn it,” Allura hiccups into one fist. “Just like the rest of us.”

Narti huffs out a soft sound as close to laughter as her ruined vocal cords will allow. A slave trader once thought to leave a stunted, half-blind little girl to drown in her own blood on the docks. It had taken them several years and careful plotting, but on Narti’s eighteenth summer Lotor had presented her with a ring of bone that has never left her hand since. Allura runs a finger over the runes she’d engraved on it, deliberate and sure, just for the soft smile it earns her.

 _Will you set him three great and noble tasks?_ Narti teases. _One for wisdom, one for valour, one for sly trickery?_

Allura leans back to study her dark and clever friend. Something in the way she forms the words, in the way an afterimage of her slim hands moving through the graceful signs hangs before Allura’s eyes like phantoms, rings a bell in her heart. A warning, a premonition, a gods’ sent vision and she’s been walking the volva’s path too long to ignore it.

“Perhaps,” she agrees quietly. “Perhaps I shall. We have each earned our freedom in blood and fire and cleverness. Why should he be different?”

 _Careful_ , Narti signs. _We killed our capturers, each of us._

Allura considers this, for Narti’s counsel has yet to steer her aground. “Then we’ll have to be something else,” she says thoughtfully, “won’t we?”

* * *

She wants to laugh at the way Lance tries to hide the way he watches her every movement as she reads the runes. His confusion and curiosity are tangible on the air—as if she could taste them in hearthfire’s smoke. He cranes his head, hardly subtle, as she runs her fingers over ivory and bone, little white squares on her dark table. When she looks up at him through the veil of her hair, Lance snaps his head away, glaring resolutely at the long rack of drying herbs.

Allura props her chin on her fist and smiles. “Do you wish to have your fortune read, thrall?”

“My _name_ ,” he says with an undercurrent of bitterness, “is _Lance_ , noble mistress.”

“And mine is Allura,” she says simply, “but if you insist on calling me by my title, then I will call you by yours.”

He blinks at her stupidly for a long moment. “You would have me call you by your name?” he asks, wonderment rending his voice soft—it’s a silvered thing, Allura thinks, without the edge of bitterness over it, full of music. She wonders if he sings. “Your slave?”

Allura makes a face. “You are a thrall, true,” she agrees, “a captive, but not a slave.”

“Forgive me, _Allura_ ,” he says, expression caught between disbelieving and wry, tone twisting her name into something just shy of a curse. She thinks she likes the sound of it, hard and sharp where others make it soft. “But I think the difference might be more academic than you let on.”

She tilts her head. “You don’t know much about our customs, do you?” She muses and then waves him into silence when he opens his mouth—she can see the snide response on his lips. “My failing, that,” Allura has to bite her lip at the way he blinks at her in confused disbelief, “I had thought Narti was teaching you. Sit!”

“I am not a hound to scrap at your every order,” he says with a sniff and she rolls her eyes at him. He slouches onto the bench, one long insolent slur. “Well?”

She has to laugh at the blatant challenge of his disrespect. “You thought yourself a slave and act so?”

His eyes glitter for a moment, the look of a dog that has kicked one too many times and the next bastard who takes a swing is going to be down a leg, his lips peel back in a smile that shows entirely too many teeth to be kind. “Even slaves have their pride.”

Allura makes soft noise of assent and stretches out one hand to consider her nails. “I ripped the eyes out of the man who thought to sell me, did Narti tell you that?” She asks. Lance goes very still. “Lotor killed his father in a duel when he tried to sell him into a political marriage. Narti wears a ring of bone from the man who slit her throat and left her to drown in the gutters. Zethrid and Ezor set fire to the nunnery that tried to imprison them. Axca,” Allura gives a little shrug, “Well, you can ask her yourself.” Allura watches his gaze go sharp and calculating. “We, each of us, earned our freedom.”

Lance tangles his fingers in her hair and tugs, hard, just once. “Are you telling me to kill you, pretty witch? Seems a very odd way to go about suicide.”

“You were part of a tribute, were you not?” She asks, watching from under her lashes. He jerks, just a little. “Placed among the jewels and the rings and the gold to keep Lotor from burning their pretty city to the ground and salting the ashes. Do they normally make tribute of freeborn where you were from?”

The look he gives her is venomous. “Where I am from no one is _given_ ,” he hisses. Then he leans back, the poison of bitter rage draining out of him as if lanced. “But Seville, well, they are a _civilized_ folk.”

“Stolen three times over?” Allura asks, head tilting in thought. The silence that spills between them catches up her words and knocks them together as if sounding them for music. She blinks at him. “Were you the third son?”

He makes a face at her. “The seventh.”

She can’t help the laughter that spills from her then, a trembling, half-mad sound that skirts the edge of a cackle. She spins from her seat to fetch them glasses and a mead—freshly racked and unholy sweet. “We drink to that then!” She says, bright-eyed and gleeful. “To the omens that haunt you.”

Lance watches her with narrowed eyes. “You want me to drink to my slavery?”

She grins at him, knowing she’s showing all her teeth. “No, to killing your captors.”

“Aren’t you one of my captors,” he asks. Allura doesn’t know what to make of his tone and tilts her head to the side slowly.

“Do you want me to be?” She asks as she pours. He sneers at her when she offers him a glass but takes it anyway. “I could do with you.”

He rubs his temples, “this conversation goes in more circles than a wagon with a broken axle.”

Allura smiles at him, gentle. “Time goes in circles,” she says. With a finger she traces a circle over the scarred surface of the temple. “As Hati and Skoll chase the sun and the moon through the sky, as the empires of men rise and fall, as the gods live and die, all things move about the wheel.”

When Lance leans forward, accepts the cup of mead poured from her hands, she knows she’s caught him in chains that bind tighter than set of steel. Allura bites the inside of her lip to keep her smug smile caught behind the cage of her teeth. She lights the candles: one for Odin, all-father, wanderer, sly trickster; one for Balder, light-bringer, innocent, gentle peacemaker; one for Hel, queen of the dreaming dead, cold-handed justice; and one for Freya, warrior-queen, bloody-handed lover, witch in the deep wilds. She tells Lance each of them in turn and he makes no snide comment, merely listens with thoughtful eyes. 

“As all things move about the wheel,” Allura tells him as she sets the candles to the four points of the circle, “so too does your life move. Freeborn,” she places a finger at Odin and moves it slowly down sweet and doomed Balder, “captive,” Lance’s eyes track as she traces the circle to Hel, “slave,” his gaze is greedy and heavy as her hand moves up to Freya, “captive again,” she favors him with a sly smile that sends his eyebrows winging towards his hairline, “and perhaps freeborn yet again,” she taps Odin’s candle and it sputters at her spitefully.

“I just have to kill my captors,” he says with a sharp, playful smile—like a cat that’s spotted a field mouse.

“All things move in circles, but sometimes they are a spiral,” Allura says rather than accept the gambit. The air between them grows hazy and she can feel the mists of time rise through floor boards, giving her the odd double vision of prophecy. She taps Hel’s candle. “Circles can be broken such that they do not precisely repeat—a spiral, an echo—rather than a repetition.”

“And what would you have me do, volva?” Lance asks. It’s the first time he’s used that title for her, first time he’s said it with any sort of respect, and she studies him for a long time. He’s still under her gaze, patient.

“In the spring, when the raiders make ready their boats,” she says and snuffs out Balder’s candle, “you will go with them,” she pinches off Freya’s candle, “you will return to Seville,” she smothers Hel’s candle, “and you will break this cycle.”

Lance says nothing as Odin’s candle flickers between them, tossing queer shadows across his high cheekbones. “You would turn me into a raider.”

She shrugs, unconcerned. “Go as a warrior, as a gentle-handed healer, as a fierce skald. Just go,” she leans back as they consider each other. “Your first task to earn your freedom.”

Lance fingers the thrall’s band around his upper arm as he studies her. “You don’t just mean from this,” he says as he taps it, “you are talking deeper mysteries.”

Allura’s lips quirk. “I am a witch,” she reminds him. “And you are haunted by omens.”


End file.
